The purpose of this blog is to foster communication and relationships between current students and alumni. We welcome blog submissions from all alumni. Please email your entry to goettlm@uwec.edu. The first blog post contains the blog template. We look forward to hearing from you!

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Trevor Peterson - AmericCorps

Name: Trevor
Peterson

Family: Nothing’s legal

Major & Minor: Human
Geography & English Literature

Year Graduated: 2010

Current Employer: University of
Wisconsin – Stout / AmeriCorps VISTA

Length of Employment: 2 years 7
months

Interests and Hobbies: I am
interested in food systems and the intersection between urban and rural
population. I believe in the Charter of the New Urbanism, agrarian urbanism,
and most of the writings of James Howard Kunstler. My hobbies include biking,
fishing, KUBB, gardening, foraging, and rooting for the Green Bay Packers.

What helped you decide what
route to take after graduation (i.e. graduate school or type of job)? I chose
to serve as an AmeriCorps Volunteer In Service To America (VISTA) in Menomonie,
WI because this program allowed me to follow my passion for food sovereignty in
the already familiar setting of western Wisconsin. AmeriCorps is similar to
Peace Corps, except we are tasked with fighting poverty domestically. My site
in Dunn County was asking VISTA members to organize food security initiatives
through the Involvement Office at UW – Stout. I read the application – which
called for service through organizing community gardens, nutrition education,
and outreach to local farmers – and decided this was my path. While the living
stipend is 10% above the poverty line, all my student loans are deferred during
my time of service and I receive an education award when I’m finished that will
erase 1/3 of my college debt. Also, the experience I’ve gained as a community
organizer has exceeded what I could have hoped to attain in graduate school.
Overall, I’ve learned to live on very little while maintaining meaningful
employment in a field relevant to my interests.

What do you think gave you to
edge to get your current position? My student engagement and research separated
me from the other candidates for this AmeriCorps VISTA position. The narrative
of my written application and stories I told during my phone interviews
included anecdotes from my engagement on campus with the FOODLUMS. I recounted
this engagement with such vividness and enthusiasm that my interviewers wanted
me to duplicate my efforts at their site. Also, I had a research project on
food access in the Twin Cities from my final semester fresh in my mind. This
project, with research goals from my Advanced GIS and Geography of Race and
Ethnicity courses, had methods and models that I could relate to my service as
a VISTA. My interviewers recognized that I had the right combination of passion
and discipline to meet their expectations of a VISTA member at their
site.

Describe your typical day at
work: As a community organizer, it’s my role to listen to the needs of the
partners at my site and connect them to the assets in our county. I’ve become
adept at one-on-one interviews where I listen to the needs of a community
member and help them realize their individual strengths. I’ll leave these
interviews with a notepad full of ideas and projects they would like to see
happen. My next task is plugging these ideas into existing programming in the
county or gathering enough like-minded partners to launch a new program. To accomplish
this task, I maintain a large asset map of community partners and their
affiliations. This map allows another service member to follow my flow after my
term ends. While some of my time is spent on building new relationships, a
larger portion is spent on maintaining existing relationships at my site. My
philosophy is to check-in with partners regularly with little or nothing to ask
because it increases their likelihood of agreeing to support a large initiative
when the time comes. Finally comes the direct service; which includes garden
installations, nutrition education, film festivals, and local food summits. Any
given workday could end with participating in one of these service events.

Where do you see yourself in 5
years? In five years, I hope to be mildly employed in a meaningful field with
the opportunity to continue my development as a place maker in western
Wisconsin. I look forward to years living in the Twin Cities learning from
institutions, co-ops, and organizations there for the benefit of opening their
ideas to rural Wisconsin farming populations. I’d like to slowly build a
self-sustaining farm property in the town of Sherman or county of Pepin that
uses the principles of agroforestry and renewable energy for the benefit of my
family and neighboring community.

What advice can you give to
those who are still in school? Find a meaningful service outlet that helps you
develop your professional strengths. Draw from your service experience while
developing your research interests or capstone project. Collaborate with the
department faculty when you can and seek multiple faculty perspectives on your
projects. Finally, don’t overschedule your semester. Too many course credits
hamstrings your social and civic development.